"When you know you know, don't you?" Hayley argued. "Whether it's five months or five years. And he's great with your kids. They're nuts about him. Being married before ought to make both of you understand the pitfalls or whatever. I don't get it. You love him, don't you?"
"Yes. And yes to the rest, to a point, but. . . it's different when you're young and unencumbered. You can take more chances. Well, if you're not me you can take more chances. And what if he wants children and I don't? I have to think about that. I have to know if I'm going to be able to consider having another child at this stage, or if the children I do have would be happy and secure with him in the long term. Kevin and I had a game plan. "
"And your game was called," Roz said. "It isn't an easy thing to walk into another marriage. I waited a long time to do it, then it was the wrong decision. But I think, if I could have fallen, just tumbled into love with a man at your age, one who made me happy, who cheerfully spent his Saturday with my children, and who excited me in bed, I'd have walked into it, and gladly. "
"But you just said, before, you gave the exact reasons why it's too soon. "
"No, I gave the reasons you'd give - and ones I understand, Stella. But there's something else you and I understand, or should. And that is that love is precious, and too often stolen away. You've got a chance to grab hold of it again. And I say lucky you. "
* * *
She dreamed again of the garden, and the blue dahlia. It was ladened with buds, fat and ripe and ready to burst into bloom. At the top, a single stunning flower swayed electric in the quiet breeze. Her garden, though no longer tidy and ordered, spread out from its feet in waves and flows and charming bumps of color and shape.
Then Logan was beside her, and his hands were warm and rough as he drew her close. His mouth was strong and exciting as it feasted on hers. In the distance she could hear her children's laughter, and the cheerful bark of the dog.
She lay on the green grass at the garden's edge, her senses full of the color and scent, full of the man.
There was such heat, such pleasure as they loved in the sunlight. She felt the shape of his face with her hands. Not fairy-tale handsome, not perfect, but beloved. Her skin shivered as their bodies moved, flesh against flesh, hard against soft, curve against angle.
How could they fit, how could they make such a glorious whole, when there were so many differences?
But her body merged with his, joined, and thrived.
She lay in the sunlight with him, on the green grass at the edge of her garden, and hearing the thunder of her own heartbeat, knew bliss.
The buds on the dahlia burst open. There were so many of them. Too many. Other plants were being shaded, crowded. The garden was a jumble now, anyone could see it. The blue dahlia was too aggressive and prolific.
It's fine where it is. It's just a different plan.
But before she could answer Logan, there was another voice, cold and hard in her mind.
His plan. Not yours. His wants. Not yours. Cut it down, before it spreads.
No, it wasn't her plan. Of course it wasn't. This garden was meant to be a charming spot, a quiet spot.
There was a spade in her hand, and she began to dig.
That's right. Dig it out, dig it up.
The air was cold now, cold as winter, so that Stella shuddered as she plunged the spade into the ground.
Logan was gone, and she was alone in the garden with the Harper Bride, who stood in her white gown and tangled hair, nodding. And her eyes were mad.
"I don't want to be alone. I don't want to give it up. "
Dig! Hurry. Do you want the pain, the poison? Do you want it to infect your children? Hurry! It will spoil everything, kill everything, if you let it stay.
She'd get it out. It was best to get it out. She'd just plant it somewhere else, she thought, somewhere better.
But as she lifted it out, taking care with the roots, the flowers went black, and the blue dahlia withered and went to dust in her hands.
* * *
Keeping busy was the best way not to brood. And keeping busy was no problem for Stella with the school year winding down, the perennial sale at the nursery about to begin, and her best saleswoman on maternity leave.
She didn't have time to pick apart strange, disturbing dreams or worry about a man who proposed one minute, then vanished the next. She had a business to run, a family to tend, a ghost to identify.
She sold the last three bay laurels, then put her mind and her back into reordering the shrub area.